Chimney Leaks & Storm Damage in College Park, GA

Chimney Leaks & Storm Damage for College Park Homeowners

The College Park historic district is one of the biggest collections of pre-1935 housing in the southeast, and the chimneys reflect it: tall, multi-flue stacks on substantial Victorian and Craftsman homes, often serving three or four fireplaces from a single structure. That is a different job from a modern single-flue chimney. Multi-flue stacks need each flue checked separately, they are more prone to cross-contamination between flues when a divider wall fails, and their crowns are large enough that when one cracks, a great deal of water gets in. Set against that, the newer building out toward Godby Road is straightforward by comparison.

Large pre-1935 multi-flue stacks in the historic district serving several fireplaces each, alongside newer, simpler construction further out.

A chimney is the only part of a roof that is deliberately full of holes, and in a climate that delivers as much rain as Atlanta does, the odds catch up with it. Water gets in at four places: a cracked crown, failed flashing where the stack passes through the roof, a missing or damaged cap, and brickwork that has become porous enough to drink. The difficulty is that the stain inside the house rarely appears under the actual entry point — water tracks down the outside of the flue and shows up a storey below. Sealing where the stain is achieves nothing, which is why people end up paying for the same leak three times.